MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — Two days after a group of cartel gunmen threw a grenade into the parking lot of a busy shopping center, a delivery truck exploded outside a store across the street from the original scene. Authorities are mum on details.
The event took place outside an Office Depot in the Plaza Fiesta shopping center where a delivery truck from the office supply chain exploded in a rear area. Authorities did not release any official information as to the cause. Moments after the truck exploded, dozens of military and police forces sealed the scene while investigators went through the vehicle. No injuries were reported.
The explosion caused panic among residents in Matamoros since two days before, cartel gunmen threw a grenade at another shopping center across the street. In that attack, the grenade did not explode, Breitbart Texas reported. This week, police and military forces sealed the HEB shopping center while military forces worked to remove the dud.
The explosion and the failed grenade attack come at a time when rival factions of the Gulf Cartel are fighting for control of Reynosa. The violence led to more than 500 murders in that city, however, Matamoros was spared from most of the fighting. The two attacks come soon after Matamoros began to see an uptick in kidnappings and executions that point to the cartel war reaching this busy drug trafficking and human smuggling corridor.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza” from Tamaulipas.
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